A Burning Heaven's Embers
by Shade Embry
Summary: Post-"Release," as John lets Monica into his life, is he forcing his old partner out?


A Burning Heaven's Embers  
  
Author: Brittany "Thespis" Frederick  
  
E-Mail: AgentThespis@msn.com  
  
Rating: PG for language  
  
Category: Drama, Vignette  
  
Spoilers: Release *sniff*, Trust No 1  
  
Summary: In one day, Stark deals with a trinity in her life – past, present, future – in the form of three people who have played small and now ever-important roles in her life.  
  
Original Character Bio: (for the Fanfiction.net newbies to this series) Stark is Agent Doggett's ex-partner, whom he worked with before joining the X-Files. After part of Season 8, she returned to his side by intentionally being transferred to the X-Files.  
  
Recommended Listening: "Unglued" from La Femme Nikita (I know I've used it as Spender's theme, but it fits here as well)  
  
Author's Notes: This one primarily goes out to Robert Patrick, whose performance in "Release" and just generally is phenomenal and brought me to tears. Additionally it has to go to the actors whose characters I've co- opted for this "Release"-inspired story: Barbara Patrick (hey, wasn't that cool that his wife played his ex-wife?), Cary Elwes (as much as I hate Follmer, you have to admit he did redeem himself), and Nick Lea (whose Krycek had better not be dead…)  
  
Putting together some of the intimations and facts of "Release," I realized that the position I've put my OC in stood to change radically, plus I had wondered how she might deal with some of these events and these people. So here goes nothing.  
  
  
  
Each step she walked, she figured her partner would kill her for when she returned to the office the upcoming Monday. But in her eyes she didn't really have a choice if she ever wanted to sleep again. Too many questions just haunted her, even as she'd stood up on the cliff waiting for John and Barbara, standing there next to Monica, feeling numb inside. Things were changing, both the way it had been told and the way she was seeing it. And she had … become lost along the way.  
  
"Agent Patrick, where are you off to?" a familiar voice called and she turned in the cold metal hallway to meet the Assistant Director's inquiring cool blue eyes. "I … I'm just taking care of some personal business," she stammered, unsure of how to talk to someone who had been not just on the take – according to Monica Reyes – but involved with someone who had been complicit in the death of her dear partner's son. "There are a few things I need to do this weekend."  
  
"I see." Follmer realized the tremor in her voice and credited it to the obvious. "You don't know what to make of it, do you? Your best friend's, your partner's, son. Finally meeting his ex-wife. What she said about Agent Reyes to you and Agent Scully. And someone you worked with knowing someone who knew. It scares you, doesn't it?"  
  
"What if it does?" she said. "How am I supposed to feel? Painful parts of his past I couldn't stop, suppositions I don't want to deal with, and … I don't even want to think that someone like you knew someone like that." She paused. "I know you did the right thing in the end, but I'm still afraid now. Afraid of where I stand, because I really don't know. That's where I'm really going, Brad. I'm going to find out."  
  
He seemed surprised by her use of his first name. "And what if you don't stand anywhere?" he said.  
  
"I stand somewhere," she corrected him. "It may be somewhere I'm not prepared to be, but even if I'm in the corner of John's life, at least I'm in his life." Now she looked down at the linoleum, saying words she never thought she'd say. "Maybe I'm not The One anymore, maybe I'm not his savior, but I'm someone on the inside."  
  
"You believed her, then. Believed what she said about Agent Doggett and Agent Reyes 'having something.' How do you think I feel? I'm in that same position."  
  
"I think it's different," she replied. "I think I missed a large portion of his life in which important things happened and now that may cost me my spot in his life altogether. I can't take that. I don't even know why I'm telling you this, but I can't … but if that's his choice, what's best for him, so be it. I just need to find out."  
  
She turned and walked away. Follmer's comments had shaken her up. The facts told her she was fading out of John's life. She didn't know how it was happening, but it was. Monica had been there with her on the cliff when she would have been alone years before. John and Monica 'having something' when she had once been the one woman he really turned to. If they fell in love, she would be steps down on that ladder, just like how Scully had been shelved as well. She had not been there through Luke's death, through the divorce, and that might push her out of his life in ways and because of things she did not understand. But she didn't want to stand with Scully and talk about what might have been. She wanted to be what was, not what had been. And she'd fight for it.  
  
"No matter what happens, he can't forget," Follmer said to her back. But she couldn't listen anymore. She took the stairs shaking. Eventually, the shaking dissolved into crying. She was faltering, failing. How could her world just collapse? Or was it already gone?  
  
-----  
  
Stark made it to Long Island that Saturday in the afternoon. She'd spent hours and hours on the drive over trying to rehearse what to say to Barbara, who had been gracious enough when they had met with Scully outside Interrogation. They'd never met, and the only way Stark knew what had passed between them was from John's accounts. But she felt she owed something to this woman, who could also help salvage her failing faith. In that hallway, she'd asked Barbara if they could meet when it was all over, and Barbara, perhaps sensing her fear and desperation, had agreed.  
  
Which had brought her to this point in time, where she parked her car outside the residence and sighed as she got out. She offered a prayer, despite being an atheist, as she regarded the building, and found the gift she had brought along in the back seat. Was there a solution that could be found in their common relationship? Or would this be another cold slap in the face of how much she did not know about John Doggett?  
  
"You're early," Barbara said when she answered the door.  
  
"I like to be punctual," Stark tried to joke, but her voice was still barely shaking. Barbara could sense this as well, and ushered the younger woman inside. "I can't figure out why we didn't do this sooner," she said as she closed the door and Stark wondered the same thing. John had told his ex-wife about his partner, that much she had gathered from their meeting. But why hadn't they met? Why hadn't she been inside this part of his life? Was it that he didn't want her to – but it couldn't be that – or was it her own weakness that kept her away?  
  
"So when did the two of you meet?" Barbara was asking and Stark forced down her inward ghosts.  
  
"John's second year with the Bureau. I was fresh from Quantico and we were assigned to each other." She chuckled at the joyous memory, which had become a shining point in her life. "After that, we never really said goodbye."  
  
"I know." Barbara mustered a small smile. "He talked about you every now and then. I got the impression he didn't want to talk about other women in case I might feel replaced or rejected, but sometimes he just couldn't avoid it. All the good moments in his progress seemed to involve you." She looked into the younger woman's eyes. "But now I gather that's not so or you wouldn't be here needing my help."  
  
It shook Stark to admit it, but she nodded slowly. "I won't lie. Especially after what you told me and Agent Scully about … well, let's just say these recent events have made me aware that maybe I don't have a place in John's life anymore. A place that might be taken over by Monica or might not be needed at all. And over these years … I really can't face that. I was thinking that you have been down this road and you know parts of him that I don't and maybe you can help me see … what I don't have."  
  
Barbara studied her. "I'll tell you one thing," she said quietly. "Sometimes it happens and you don't know, and at least you know and you have a chance to stop it." Her eyes were glassine. "I never knew."  
  
Then she took a deep shuddering breath. "But if my sacrifice will make your life what mine didn't become, at least that will mean something in the end."  
  
-----  
  
Their conversation went on for hours. Barbara told the whole story, the painful parts and the positive parts. Stark didn't know how she soldiered through it, but John's ex-wife had a hardy soul and a good constitution and obviously understood the dire straits that her ex-husband had accidentally cast another of his female confidants into.  
  
Finally, just as the sun was setting, they went their separate ways. They had inevitably entered into a syndrome of a different type by their common torture. They were allies now in this struggle, and Barbara had manipulated her own sacrifice to provide Stark a second chance. Somehow, Stark doubted that "I'll let you know what happens" were going to be the last words she would say to the ex-Mrs. John Doggett.  
  
She unlocked her car, descended the walk and circled around to the driver's side. Then she drove home, thinking of how much she had learned. It certainly fit cogent and right with her knowledge of John. But he probably would feel betrayed that she had gone to see his ex-wife. But what real choice did she have left? Drowning her sorrows, she clicked on the radio and turned it up as a mournful song she had heard watching late night TV played its somber, sparse notes.  
  
The sun we walk to each day  
  
Is starting to rise again  
  
Standing on the cliff with Monica: "Do you ever wish you had the power to change everything in someone's life just for one moment?" And Monica had said: "Sometimes I do. But can you really give what you believe to them?"  
  
I haven't any sleep yet  
  
Don't know where you've been  
  
That night she had sat up in bed and cried until the phone suddenly rang. "You okay?" John had asked, hearing her strained breathing. She had forced it: "John, I don't know who I am anymore." He hadn't known what to say, finally had said "You're the same strong person you've always been."  
  
"Am I?"  
  
I wonder if you see it  
  
I wonder if you see it at all  
  
They had been standing in the office one day – herself, John and Monica – when they'd hit a question in their investigation. John had looked at her, and when she didn't know the answer, turned to Monica, who of course had the theory.  
  
Back in the present day, feeling weaker with every breath she forced through tired lungs, Stark could not help but sing along with the chorus of the song as it reached a painful cresendo.  
  
I just want to be with you  
  
Part of everything you're going through  
  
Like it was before we came unglued  
  
"I'm never going to leave you, Stark," he had told her. "Any man would be crazy to walk out on you. I walk out on you, I'm denyin' myself."  
  
Holding every piece you tossed out  
  
Nothing fits without you around  
  
Like it did before we came unglued  
  
She drove and sung, thinking of those words. After a while, she couldn't forget them again, but she couldn't feel unburdened either. She made it back to D.C. still feeling strained, feeling like Barbara's godsend of answers only lead to bigger questions.  
  
-----  
  
It was four hours to her work time when she made it back, and Stark felt herself drawn back to the office. She parked her car in the near-empty Hoover parking garage, climbed wearily up stairs she used to run with anticipation. When she reached her floor, she had simply given out, sitting down hard on the stairwell landing with her knees tucked into her chest and her heartbeat pounding out of sheer exhaustion. And she hadn't run a step.  
  
Her mind began to wander. If she didn't have John, who would she turn to as that older brother figure in her life? Mulder had Scully, he couldn't possibly provide for her when Scully deserved that attention. She and Skinner were acquaintances who never really met. Follmer was another enigma. There were CID agents, but they had all drifted away over the years. Peyton, her ex-fiance, was across the country, and Drew, her former trainer at Quantico, was in Boston and in shambles himself.  
  
She cried again, realizing she was out of options. Despite saying she wouldn't invest in them, she had in her solidarity driven herself into an absolute she could not get out of. "What can I do?" she said to herself. "It's his life, not mine. His choice, and what if I'm not it?"  
  
"You're mourning for him again, aren't you?" someone else said, and she thought it might be Follmer offering comisseration. But it wasn't Follmer. It was another ghost in her young life coming down a higher flight of stairs toward her. He knew. How long had he been listening? How long had he been there, a witness to her gradual collapse?  
  
"It's not your business, Alex," she forced out. "It's over, that's all."  
  
"Between us, or between you and Agent Doggett? Or did you just give up on him already?" he said, coming down to her level. "I knew it would happen, Stark. I've known since the investigation began. I've been waiting for you to come to this point. Waiting and watching just so I could be here when it happened."  
  
"Nothing you say can make me hurt more," she insisted, looking at him through misted eyes. "If you came here to hurt me, you're going to fail."  
  
"If I wanted to hurt you I would have done it far before this," he continued, ignoring her response. "I'm here because I knew you would need someone to tell you that drowning in your self-pity isn't going to stem the tide. I've done that myself and you've seen me do it. You wouldn't listen to Follmer when he said Doggett can't forget, so listen to me: stop thinking you're going to die and instead think that you're still alive, if only for a moment. Get up."  
  
She stared at him, speechless.  
  
"Get up off the floor or you're going to die where you stand. Trust me, I know."  
  
What could she say to that? He spoke again before she could reply.  
  
"I'll wait if you want me to."  
  
But she found herself shaking her head. She had to walk these final – if indeed they were final – steps of this transition by herself until she found a solution.  
  
And before she could say anything more, halfway standing up to chase him, Krycek suddenly disappeared how he always did when she had questions for him. He couldn't answer her questions, but this time he was telling her maybe she should answer them herself instead of relying on someone else.  
  
She looked up the stairwell, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, before pushing open the stairwell door and walking out onto the floor. A light was on in Follmer's office, and she knocked on the door before walking inside.  
  
"Did you find what you were looking for, Agent Patrick?" he asked her.  
  
"Not yet," she admitted. "Not yet."  
  
He looked at her with a painful glance, because he did understand. She sat down across from him and looked him in the eye, disbelieving herself as she realized she was about to tell this man – who had betrayed Monica and John despite his atonement – everything. But she wasn't herself anymore. That woman who might have turned away couldn't turn away anymore.  
  
"Would you mind," she said, "if I just sat here and talked for a while?"  
  
"No," he said, stopping entirely and looking at her, into her. "No, I wouldn't mind at all."  
  
And as she began the whole story from the beginning, closing one chapter, opening another, clutching at straws, Stark heard as Follmer listened the voice of someone who had been where she was now some painful time before:  
  
One day, you'll ask me to speak of a truth. To explain what is unexplained. And if I falter or fail on this day, know there is an answer, a sacred imperishable truth, but one you may never hope to find alone. Chance meeting your perfect other - your protector. Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of journeys - a search for truths fugitive and imponderable. And if one day you should behold a miracle, you will learn the truth is not found in science, or on some unseen plane, but by looking into your own heart. And in that moment you will be blessed - and stricken. For the truest truths are what hold us together, or keep us painfully, desperately apart. 


End file.
